The Bond girl who beat the would-be killer

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Her left arm flailed as if she were trying to wipe something off the airplane window with her elbow.

From across the aisle, her mother couldn't figure out what she was doing.

Neither could Lynn-Holly Johnson.

Her arm was acting as if it had a mind of its own.

When the plane landed at John Wayne Airport, she was barely able to negotiate her way, zigging and zagging, to the baggage claim area.

No doubt people in the terminal thought the former actress, who starred in “Ice Castles” in 1978 and became a Bond girl in “For Your Eyes Only” in 1981, was drunk. She fell down three times before her mother helped her into a taxi.

It was late at night in January 2010, and Johnson was having a very public stroke.

What Johnson didn't know then was that she had been doomed to have this moment from the second she was born, and that a person very close to her was doomed as well.

Unless she could help him.

What a life.

Johnson was an ice skating champion, model and actress before she was a teenager. As a kid in Chicago, she starred in a stage version of “The Miracle Worker” with Rita Moreno. She appeared in television commercials for McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Sears. She was good enough on the ice to dream about making the U.S. Olympic team, but an injury in 1974 ended her chances.

At 19, she landed the role of Lexie Winston, the skating whiz who falls in love with Robby Benson and goes blind because of a blood clot in her brain, in “Ice Castles.” (She had no idea at the time that she and Benson, the 1970s sensation, both were keeping a secret that would haunt them as they grew older.)

At 22, she played the role of Bibi Dahl and went to bed with James Bond in “For Your Eyes Only.” She giggled through a sexy scene with Roger Moore, who was more than 30 years older than her.

She married George Clooney in one television show. She worked with Bette Davis on the Disney film “The Watcher in the Woods.” She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. She met Diana, Princess of Wales, and Prince Charles. She was friends with Dustin Hoffman and Steven Spielberg. She dated, among others, Dean Paul Martin and John Denver.

She also won a Razzie for worst supporting actress in “Where the Boys Are '84.” (Johnson is quick to point out that Sylvester Stallone, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Demi Moore are all Razzie winners, too.)

“I got in and out of the movie business safely,” said Johnson, who is now a full-time mom living in Newport Beach with her husband, Kelly Givens, and her children, Kellen and Jensie.

She starred in more than a dozen movies, but no major films since the mid-1980s. Her career, she said, was derailed when she refused to do nude scenes. On the set of “Ice Castles,” she shut down production for a day when she was asked to take off her clothes.

She was considered for a role in Francis Ford Coppola's “The Cotton Club.” But when she saw that the script called for nudity, she said no. She was asked to read for the raunchy “Caddyshack,” but said no.

“There was a line, and I couldn't cross it,” she said. “I made the perfect decision for me. My life is swell. Wonderful husband, great kids, living in Orange County.”

She really does say things like “Life is swell” and “Life is a picnic.”

And for her, right now, any life at all is just peachy.

A hiccup nearly killed her.

For some still-unexplained reason, while on that flight from Florida to Orange County three years ago, a blood clot formed in Johnson's heart.

She didn't know it, but she had a patent foramen ovale (PFO), which is a hole in her heart that, in most people, closes at birth. In about 25 percent of the population, like with Johnson, the PFO stays open. In most people, the PFO is not dangerous.

Her late father, Alan, who had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when Lynn-Holly Johnson had the stroke, also had a PFO. He suffered a stroke in 1985. Her brother, Gregg, also had a PFO but had left it untreated. Gregg would become his sister's great project in life after her stroke. Despite what happened to her and their father, Gregg refused to get tested for a PFO.

When she hiccupped on that flight, the blood clot shot through the PFO and lodged in her brain. And after Johnson stumbled out of the airport, her mother helped her into the back of a cab.

When she got home, her husband immediately took her to Hoag Hospital, which is seven minutes away.

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